Sol 6.1

  1. A feast day—and what has gladdened me, that I should call out?

    Hope has departed from the thirsty captive.

  2. And with what clear words shall I congratulate one who turns away,

    Who will not accept the intercession of feast days?

  3. If I find no place with you, what have I to do

    With these banners and troops?

  4. The Persian minister recognized my standing

    In the realm of composition and recitation.

  5. And that stranger rewarded me for what he saw

    Of my dignity, my character, and my striving.

  6. Were it not for his love for you and his poetry,

    I would never have acknowledged any favors from him.

  7. And livelihood is readily found; were it not for my pride

    And my honor, I would have become a generous man's slave.

  8. You brought your eminent poet close, yet no one followed

    Your example among the people of this valley.

  9. You have kept honoring him for his poetry; yet why

    Do you pay no heed to his peers?

  10. Distant and troubled—were it not for their gentleness

    And tenderness, they would have been among the ascetics.

  11. They do not ask you even once to grant them

    Land; a little harvest is enough for them.

  12. They made their lives a ransom for you, and faced

    Your mighty adversary at the appointed time.

  13. And they rallied for a remnant which, but for them,

    Would have been swept away by vicissitudes and calamities.

  14. They exalted you above any partner, and deemed

    Your two lands too great for any protector or redeemer but you.

  15. They made their faces pages of their affection,

    And the blackness of their eyes the most precious ink.

  16. And they bring their country glad tidings of its deliverance

    And its life, while white blades lie in their sheaths.

  17. And they regard your gentleness toward the stranger—even if he is harsh—as

    The right that guests and visitors have upon you.

  18. So show kindness to the sincere counselors of a humbled people,

    Still between arms and a cradle.

  19. For poetry needs someone who will come to its aid,

    And may well do without critics.

  20. If you wish, it is an acquired craft,

    Like the craft of the carpenter and the blacksmith.

  21. And if you will, it is revelation, just as

    The Book descended upon a guiding prophet.

  22. Did Ismail receive from his poets

    What you received from your illustrious poets,

  23. Who give their minds and hearts

    To build a kingdom and raise its pillars?

  24. Can your watering place be brimming and surging,

    While the purest of those seeking water are driven from it?

  25. Or shall the gardens' doves depart from them,

    While the vulture is in the gardens at evening and at dawn?

  26. Do you consider Egypt to have no need of them? Then

    They have no better resource than Sudan.

  27. If their share eludes them in adversity, what

    Can they hope for from a barren land there?

  28. And hotter than its desert and its sands

    Is the longing of hearts and livers for you.

  29. What is the worth of a titled man whose purse lacks

    Even two dirhams, and whose house lacks provisions?

  30. Which impulse in you has changed my nature,

    And by what kindness have you taken hold of my reins?

  31. Did you think me one of those whom you deprived,

    Who then resorted to falsehood and corruption?

  32. And you gave to them, and they swarmed; you withheld from them,

    And they lashed out there with sharp tongues.

  33. Be as you wish; my obedience to you and my contentment

    Are the same whether you draw me near or keep me far.

  34. Poetry is but a sign for you; there shines forth

    Within it the likeness of my character and my sound judgment.

  35. If I am absent, there is the remembrance you approve; and if

    I am present, I fill the onlookers' eyes.

  36. So may your festival gladden your Egypt, and let

    Your most faithful well-wisher spend the night in sorrow and sleeplessness.

  37. He was kept from finery and processions by

    The sick man's suffering and the throng of visitors.

  38. Privately confiding my complaint to you did not avail,

    And now I have carried it to the point of thundering.

  39. Indeed, one who has defied his reproachers

    Will not fear the gloating of the envious.

Sol 6.1